


Volacious, Embrangled

by orphan_account



Category: The Faculty (1998)
Genre: Multi, Pre-Canon, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-28
Updated: 2008-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stokely just before the events of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Volacious, Embrangled

It's not complex at all. Inside her, it made perfect sense.

There wasn't anyone in the school who was like her, except by occupying a roughly similar position, like Casey did. Of course Casey didn't fight back. That's why they broke his nose on the front yard; because it was funny. She was backyard material. She was kick her in the ribs and break her nose on the toilet seat material. So she stayed out of backyards; in the crowds. He would have been safer in the shadows.

Some people could talk to her and talk to her and she wouldn't hear a thing. She could just read her book and ignore them, or then she'd only tell them to fuck off and they would. People like Delilah who knew their way around words were hard to ignore. Delilah was everything Stokely hated.

Stokely threw the book at the wall. Her sister's music was thumping on the wall opposite her, making her head throb, but that was only part of the reason.

She sighed and wished the walls of her room were black and soundproof, but they were white and creamy yellow and thin as paper. She pulled headphones over her ears, flicking the radio on. Speech flowed into her ears and she buried under the covers on her bed, fully clothed.

"...was Idun, goddess of spring and wife of Brage, the bard. She was another form of the Lady as a bestower of immortality, again associated with orchards. When her apples were stolen by..."

Delilah's skin smelled like apple - probably a lotion of some sort. Really close up you could see the flecks of mascara on her eyelashes, proving that Maybelline it indeed was. But her eyes were the strangest colour, flecks of yellow on the brown, and she probably did feel human under that garish red shirt - she'd be soft and rounded, and there'd be places on her you could press your hand on that would make her jump and... and feel something. Something she couldn't bar out with the ice in her guts or the ugly words that fell so easily from her painted, smiling lips.

Stokely hadn't thought of any of that until the first and only time Delilah had come close enough for her to smell her, to see the colours of her eyes.

Stokely never lingered in empty hallways. But that day Nurse Harper had taken more than fifteen minutes finishing up her check-up and speechifying. Stokely knew she was anemic, but her options for improving that didn't look too good. What sports was she going to go into if the girls locked her out of the locker room? Besides, it wasn't like the gym class was anything to look forward to. Oh dodgeball and calisthenics again, yay! Becoming a lesbian had been one of the best things she'd ever come up with - couldn't have a better excuse to go watch the boys' football practice instead of standing among a bunch of drones going through stupid routines designed to make you more conventionally attractive. She was never going to be conventionally attractive anyway, with her face. She didn't even want to be, anymore.

And eating better? She preferred McDonald's to Mom's home-cooked meals. Happy Meals never included Dad's home-cooked lectures on How Things Should Be But Aren't Because of All the Deviants and Niggers.

So she was sent back to class ten minutes late with a bunch of useless advice on her hands. She wandered the hallway taking her time, and considered not going. Seemed a better choice than walking in late, conspicuous.

"Hey Stokely. Skipping class?"

Delilah leaned on a locker, smug little smile in place; just two feet away from her, but she hadn't seen her. Stokely's lip curled in disgust, and she turned to go to class. "Go polish your nails, fucktard."

"You mean these?" And then Delilah was there, one hand on her waist, the other drawing long nails gently across her cheek. An apple scent in the air. Stokely turned only slightly, but Delilah leaned in, and she could see the flecks of mascara on her lashes, and the flecks of yellow in her eyes, and felt the softness of her breast against her side.

Stokely had been kissed exactly once in her life; she'd been thirteen, he'd been seventeen and trying to get into her pants. It had been wet and forceful and rather unpleasant, but she'd thought about it often after that. What she thought about with Delilah's face less than an inch from hers was that if their lips were dry, and the pressure was faint, there would only be a small surface of wetness against wetness, non-invasive, an opening against and opening; and if she lifted Delilah's upper lip slightly with her lower and pressed the tip of her tongue against it maybe --

"Mom's away for the week," Delilah whispered. "If you bring your homework over to my place tonight, who knows... maybe we could..." Her words ebbed away, and for a moment fear broke the surface of her eyes.

It took a few seconds to sink in, but then a snort swirled out of the bottom of Stokely's belly. She started laughing. She couldn't have helped it if she'd wanted to, and the more she laughed the less she wanted to stop. It peeled out of her and echoed loud and conspicuous through the empty hallways.

"Fine, then!" she heard Delilah's acidic voice say somewhere in the stony echoes. "Freaky dyke!"

Wasn't one of her best lines, but then again Stokely could understand she was distraught. The hysterics took many more minutes to settle down.

Small victories.

In retrospect, Stokely thought, she should've seen it coming. She'd been odd enough even before she'd come up with the lesbian thing, but Delilah hadn't given her a second glance then. It was only after the rumours spread that she'd started seeing Delilah watching her. In a reflection in the window in the classroom; never so sure if she was watching her or the boy sitting behind her. Or through crowds so thick there'd be no way to tell who she was looking at, except if you were that person. Sometimes Stokely had still wondered, hadn't know if it had been just in her head. She couldn't figure out if the smile was mocking her or threatening her. She certainly hadn't expected it was inviting her...

The last thing you should do is make a bitch afraid of you. It wasn't long after that that Delilah started dating Stan, and it was right from that moment on that Delilah stepped up her bitch act on Stokely.

Stan.

Stan wasn't very smart, and he had a thousand in-built reactions that Stokely loathed in everyone else. His friends were idiots... but he had a nice face. He never looked like he was quite in the right place, and that's what made her feel... odd. When he talked to her, or looked at her across the room, over Delilah's shoulder more often than not. Sometimes she would see him face to face with her, her lips moving, and she would see his hackles rise up, ready to tackle or fight, and then see him deflate when there was no-one to fight.

Stan would never hit a girl, or kiss her without permission, or shove his fingers into her uninvited.

Stokely wasn't a lesbian, and she wasn't a virgin. She watched Stan, but what she felt was harder to define. She wished sometimes he would just go away, go the fuck away and leave her alone. She wished everyone would just leave her alone.

In the radio the speaker turned into a news cast about meteors and Stokely turned it off. Her sister's music had mercifully been silenced. With a glance to the door to make sure it was locked, she unbuttoned her trousers under the covers and slipped her right hand between her legs.

And she thought about Delilah.


End file.
